Pathway to Success: Sciotoville Elementary Academy focuses on meeting the needs of its rural community

As people in Sciotoville tell it, their children historically have gotten Portsmouth’s leftovers—from textbooks to sports uniforms and more. That belief, they say, was the impetus for creating Sciotoville’s two start-up charter public schools.

Sciotoville East Community Schools are unique among charter public schools in Ohio. Serving students and their families from Appalachia, they are two of the very small number of charters located outside of the state’s urban communities. They illustrate what’s possible when educators, families, and an entire community come together to save their schools by transforming them into public charter schools.

This profile of the staff, students, and families of one of these schools—Sciotoville Elementary Academy—will show you an entirely new view of what charters can do to meet the needs of their communities, and why we need more of them in rural areas.